Sliver Of Shadow

La Cagna Rosa

When Nico entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom he found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teacher's desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and a black velvet bow on top of her head. Nico bit his lip, forcing himself not to puke in her presence. He took a seat in the very back of the classroom.

"Well, good afternoon!" she said when the whole class had finally settled down.

Nico scowled back at her. His afternoon had been anything but good - heck, he'd even missed lunch!

"Tut, tut, Mr. Di Angelo. You may be a transfer student, but that does not give you the right to dress like a disgusting muggle hooligan. Fifteen points from Slytherin."

Nico did not reply. He was too busy trying to control himself not to kill the ugly toad woman.

Umbridge turned back to the class. "Now, I should like you all, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,' when I say 'Good afternoon, class.' One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!"

"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," the class - sans Nico - chanted back at her.

"There, now," said Professor Umbridge sweetly. "That wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please."

Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order "wands away" had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting. Nico, however, breathed a sigh of relief. He had not wanted to use his wand yet; lest he blow his cover (again). He had a sneaking suspicion Hecate would not be so lenient a third time. Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once:

Defense Against the Dark Arts

A Return to Basic Principles.

"Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it?" stated Professor Umbridge, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her. "The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your O.W.L. year."

Constant changing of teachers? Nico wondered what that meant.

"You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theorycentered, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please."

She rapped the blackboard again; the first message vanished and was replaced by:

Course aims:

1 Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic.

2 Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic can legally be used.

3 Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.

For a couple of minutes the room was full of the sound of scratching quills on parchment. Nico pulled out a pen - because no matter how superior in magic, wizards were idiotically medieval - rolling his eyes at the inquisitive looks sent his way.

He wrote:

My course aims:

1 Make Umbridge's life miserable.

2 Kill Tom Riddle.

3 Make sure both go to Hades.

When everyone except for Nico had copied down Professor Umbridge's three course aims she said, "Has everybody got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?"